By Leah Schnurr NEW YORK, April 15 (Reuters) - Gold slumped anew on Monday,racking up its worst two-day loss in 30 years, and investorsdumped stocks and other commodities after weaker-than-expectedChinese data raised concerns about the global economic outlook. Gold dragged other metals lower as its price plunged to amore than two-year low. Oil fell towards $100 a barrel, whileWall Street stocks were down more than half a percent. Spot gold dropped as much as 8 percent on Mondayalone, accelerating losses in the late morning to hit a low of$1,356.85 an ounce. In the last two sessions gold has fallennearly 13 percent, making for the worst two days since lateFebruary 1983. Gold was recently at $1,363.51, down 7.8 percent.Strategists have cited various reasons for gold's decline,including official selling from central banks and the alreadysharp correction that has caused short-term investors to fleethe asset. "The mass liquidation in gold is feeding on itself andpushing prices of the yellow metal, possibly well belowspeculators' entry points. It is rolling over across the entirecommodity complex as is typical with any period of liquidation,"said Andrew Wilkinson, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak& Co. China's recovery unexpectedly stumbled in the first threemonths of 2013, as it reported its annual growth rate eased to7.7 percent from 7.9 percent in the final quarter of last year.Economists had forecast 8 percent growth. Industrial output in China in March also undershotexpectations and added to investor sensitivity after recentdisappointing economic data out of the United States.

A U.S. regional manufacturing report on Monday showed thepace of growth slowed, the latest data to suggest the world'sbiggest economy lost some steam heading into the second quarter. "The growth numbers out of China are absolutely crucial forcommodities and the numbers that came out are significantlyworse than people were expecting," said Nic Brown, head ofcommodities research at Natixis in London. "China makes up 40 percent of demand for base metals and allthe growth in demand for oil is coming from the developingworld, so to see weakness in China is bad for commoditiesgenerally." Last week Cyprus revealed it would sell around 400 millioneuros worth of gold to help plug its finances and the move hassparked suggestions that larger countries in the region coulduse the move to cash in on some huge jumps gold has seen overthe last decade. Traders also cited concern that the Federal Reserve mightreduce U.S. monetary stimulus towards the end of the year. "We are entering a phase of additional long liquidation byETF investors and short-selling from hedge funds, which willcontinue in the foreseeable future," Saxo Bank senior managerOle Hansen said. Brent crude futures dropped more than $2 to $100.27as the disappointment stirred the already-festering globalrecovery concerns. U.S. crude lost more than $3 to$88.15.

U.S. stocks also fell for the second straight session,weighed by the disappointing data both domestically and abroad. "None of the economic data has been very good for the lastcouple of weeks. When you look at the whole scope of data, itlooks like we have been going into a slowdown here," said PaulMendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham FinancialServices in Charlotte, Vermont. "I wouldn't say this is over yet, but there are enoughindicators out there to really indicate that investors shouldapproach this market with a degree of caution which doesn't seemto exist right now." The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 86.82points, or 0.58 percent, to 14,778.24. The Standard & Poor's 500Index fell 11.92 points, or 0.75 percent, to 1,576.93.The Nasdaq Composite Index gave up 27.18 points, or 0.82percent, at 3,267.77. The FTSEurofirst 300 was down 0.7 percent andMSCI's world share index, which tracks stocks in45 countries, lost 0.9 percent. The yen rose as traders sold riskier investments funded bythe cheap Japanese currency. The dollar fell 0.5 percentto 97.93 yen, having dropped as low as 97.57 yen on Reuters datain Asian trade. It has retreated from a four-year high of 99.94yen on Thursday, and hefty resistance is expected at 100 yen. The euro fell 0.6 percent to 128.22 yen, itslowest in a week and down for a second straight day. Last week,the euro touched 131.11 yen, its strongest since January 2010.